Articles About Christianity

Not everyone who says to Me “Lord, Lord…”

Matthew 7:21-23

It is seriously to be hoped that the majority of Christians truly understand these words from Jesus, because the consequences of not understanding them will be dire in the extreme. These words have over millennia been passed over and ignored again and again, either deliberately by those who felt uncomfortable with them or indolently by those who could not be bothered.

These words, however, are a warning. They are a warning against indolence and self-complacency. Against blind faith and spiritual arrogance. Against the teaching that says that all we have to do is declare our belief in Jesus and that the Kingdom of Heaven is assured and guaranteed. Against that teaching that wants to ignore the importance of true spiritual righteousness (making the effort to be a better human being and casting aside our faults.) Against that teaching that says that obedience to the Church is equivalent also to obedience to God!

Here, we have the proof from Jesus Himself that the semblance of belief and faith are not just enough. The externals connected with our Churches and the service that we render to these have nothing to do whatsoever with the substance.

What is this substance, however? Finding out what the true Will of God is and then adjusting our lives to It is the purpose of our lives. The true Will of God was brought down through the Word of Jesus. Whether His Word has been fully preserved for posterity is left for the individual to decide for himself.

It is this Word and the strict adherence to It that is equivalent to doing the Will of God, doing the Will of His Father. It is the constant working on ourselves, to cast aside all our faults and weaknesses that will see us through.

Over millennia, this Word of Jesus has been made to look less than what It is. We have systematically been taught to ignore the strict warnings in the Word of Jesus and the demands It makes on the individual, and to accept in Its place a belief that teaches an easy forgiveness of sins, which is false and never existed.

In this manner, instead of being alert as regards ourselves and our Salvation, we went to sleep. We no longer curbed our faults and weakness, we thought that we could let all our desires run riot, harming our neighbours since all we had to do was confess at the end of the day and all will be forgiven. A more dangerous road could not have been followed.

Evil welled up and filled the earth. That which Jesus brought to counteract this very evil had been turned around and used to foster this same evil. His Word, which was meant to help human spirits avoid sin and evil had now been perverted and was now used to foster more evil in the world.

Disaster! Since sins could now easily be forgiven, either by a cursory glance towards heaven or by confessing sins to the priest, all that was meant to hold human spirits back from the brink had now been removed.

All that Jesus then taught us about guarding our thoughts, words and deeds no longer mattered. His Word was now relegated into the background and what was left was a shell, under which everything was permitted. The core of His Word had been eaten away. What then was left was the personality cult of Jesus, beneath which the individual was permitted to live according to his or her desires.

Organisations flourished. As long as they maintained the outward shell or the semblance of a belief in Jesus and were able to bandy His Name about, then they were alright. They must be on the right path. They must be on the right path since they had the Name of Jesus on their lips all the time and written on their doors. They even performed miracles in His Name and healed many a sick person.

Amid all this the question remains: where is the Teaching of Jesus? Where is the body of His Word? All gone! Where is that Teaching that tells human beings to guard their words, thoughts and deeds? Where is that Teaching that demands that we unearth for ourselves the Will of God and adjust ourselves strictly to It. All gone! It was deemed to harsh and as such no longer taught.

What is more, because of the present time which returns to each individual the just consequences of his or her deeds and which as such has led to enormous personal difficulties and sufferings, just as a result many organisations have arisen promising an easy way out of the difficulty. Having the Name of Jesus again on their lips, they promise an easy way out of suffering and guilt, just as it happened centuries ago at the beginning of the formation of the Churches.

Instead of explaining to people the real reasons behind their sufferings, they see only an opportunity for themselves for earthly expansion and influence. The individual too, through long-accustomed indolence of his spirit, is actually on the look out for such an easy road. Indeed his yearning and desire for such is what has led to the enormous proliferation of these organisations in the first place.

This goes to show that the individual through his addiction to indolence carries the greater part of the blame for this state of affairs. And if at the end of it all, he is unable to find Salvation for his spirit, then he must indeed blame himself for this. He must not try to blame God Whose help towards mankind goes beyond what any words can adequately describe.

His first task is to rouse himself and be rid of that indolence that he has enslaved himself to. He must soon realize that he is absolutely independent in his spiritual beliefs and does not need any organization as a mediator between him and his Creator.

He will soon realize that he can be guided through helpful spiritual guidance to discover what the true Will of God is and that he can joyfully grasp this Will and adjust his entire life to It. He will soon realize that he can be free without any slavish attachment to any organisation and that God does not demand slaves but joyful free human beings. He will soon learn to distinguish between what God truly demands of him and what earthly institutions have hitherto forced him to adhere to. Breathing a sigh of relief, he must thank God for the beautiful and joyful gift of existence.